To an Imagined Eye on Behalf of Another

. . . for noticing convergences encourages them to no end passing mutating spreading diffusing through water music systems connotations into throbbing pulsing glow and gushing as this cow challenges the supremacy of fact, 1941-1A9I4D1A-Aida pounds her question with her hooves into the earth and her answer no this need not be is the ache unacknowledged in your heart whose frail trembling rings with her hooves pounding and your resonance and all the resonances converging seep into the water when Aida plunges from the bridge into the creek: her quadrupedal body strikes the creek and shatters into meltwater the border of the unattainable into a way with rushing currents, water in the eyes reveals the interstices of the apparent where it meets upon tangents its almost see-through doppelgangers, the wild twins of happenstance which are ever free never submit to actuality’s tyrannies, and from the possibilities swirling drenching muddying with stirring sediment and leaking one another Aida chooses one that isn’t looking back, one in which the mother isn’t tethered to the fact of the calf, in which the cow sheds her meaty weight, forgets her udder in the water, the terrestrial does not seek solid ground, instead Aida dives under the water and becomes herself exceeding every category except her singular self; the water’s strength is merging with that of her will and the swirling in her heart and her long legs galloping groundless among bubbles of brown light amidst brown tadpoles golden fishes green mussels, the creek is growing fat and strong into a river as her hope is growing her excitement, the torrent quickening is sweeping her faster and faster into itself, Aida is flowing through shoals of surprised fishes dragonflies crocodiles through rapids boulders underwater jungles and the water keeps on growing, her excitement is growing, she no longer needs to gallop as the water sweeps her farther-farther from the known but she is galloping with the water rushing her legs sparkling and surging with the water for with joy her heart is expanding with joy her heart is billowing to let in everything passing flowing seeping as the enthusiasm of the water is expanding and pressing faster-faster: eels hummingbirds leaves dandelions, echoes of the trains she used to hear rebounding from castoff limbs of trees and images of horses dogs stones hands snakes systems tires wires, glimpses of wisps of messages blurring in ripples and light, turtles grasses rays fishes flashing green maroon silver; Aida is flowing, silver-green oysters in tiny thickets like leafless trees are waving at her seeming to have been waiting for her having foreseen her in their estuarine prophecies in their oysterine stillness listening to the water bearing every moment’s unsettled mutants, and the oysters welcome her with open shells bid Aida choral welcomes and farewells for she is flowing to the ocean; the ocean is calling with a long wide-open dripping breath and Aida lifts her head like a turtle like a whale answering the ocean with her breath in a long bovine bellow under a wide-open sky, hooves over head tumbling with all her legs hair nostrils into salt and she is galloping in open ocean in the swirling galaxy of stars spiraling like the swimming snails who are among the stars, snails glaucus violet gold are with her on the high crests and huge troughs of the global song of the vast ocean’s breath, blue and twinkling hydrozoans siphonophores cnidarians flow alongside her like planets, larval octopuses fishes tritons transparent and microscopic are futures and questions of futures swimming wide-eyed with Aida through space and water’s twins of time; anemones growing on her head, her white hair is becoming yellow seaweed with tasty fronds and thalli laden with golden bubbles, barnacles latch themselves to her hooves, on her back are speckled fishes with tiny hands who walk like quadrupeds, and Aida sings herself celestine with fresh capacities of . . .